437 



WALLACE, SIR WILLIAM. 



WALLACE, SIR WILLIAM. 



488 



ia said, first seen her at a church in the neighbourhood of Lanark. 

 The Scotch writers affirm that this lady, whom ho appears to have 

 married, and who at any rate bore him a daughter, a year or two 

 after forming her connection with Wallace fell into the hands of his 

 enemies, and was barbarously executed by order of Hazelrig, the 

 English sheriff or governor of Lanark, while her husband, or lover, 

 was doomed to witness the spectacle from a place where he lay in 

 concealment. Such private injuries were well fitted to raise his public 

 hatred to an unextineuishable flame. 



How far the guerilla warfare maintained by Wallace and his asso- 

 ciates contributed to excite and spread the spirit of resistance to the 

 English government, we have scarcely the means of judging ; but it 

 seems probable that it aided materially in producing the general insur- 

 rection which broke out in the spring of 1297. The accounts we have 

 of the commencement of that movement represent Wallace at its head, 

 in command of a considerable force, and in association with some of 

 the most distinguished persons in the kingdom, such as the Stewart of 

 Scotland and his brother, Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, Sir William 

 Douglas, &c. Soon after this he was joined by the younger Robert 

 Bruce (afterwards King Robert 1.), who had hitherto, as well as his 

 father, still alive (the son of the original competitor for the crown), 

 professed to adhere to the English king. 



This however appears to have been but an ill-cemented confederacy. 

 When the force despatched by Edward to quell the revolt presented 

 itself before the Scottish army posted near Irvine, in Ayrshire, the 

 leaders of the latter, throwing off the authority of their nominal chief, 

 could no more agree what to do than whom to obey ; and the result 

 was that Bruce, the Stewart, Douglas, and others of them, availing 

 themselves of the diplomatic talents of the bishop of Glasgow, con- 

 cluded a treaty on the 9th of July, by which they agreed to acknow- 

 ledge Edward as their sovereign lord. All the rest ultimately acceded 

 to this arrangement, except only Wallace and his friend Sir Andrew 

 Moray of Bothwell. The treaty of Irvine, which is printed by Rymer, 

 is, we believe, the first of the few public documents in which mention 

 is made of Wallace : to the instrument (which is in French) are sub- 

 joined the words, ' Escrit h, Sir Willaume ; ' the meaning of which 

 Lord Hailes conceives to be, " that the barons had notified to Wallace 

 that they had made terms of accommodation for themselves and their 

 party." The words moreover, on the supposition that they refer to 

 Wallace, of which there seems to be little doubt, show that he had 

 before this date obtained the honour of knighthood. It had probably 

 been bestowed upon him (as was then customary) by some other 

 knight, one of his companions in ams, since his elevation from being 

 the captain of a band of outlaws to be the commander-in- chief of the 

 national forces. 



Wallace now retired to the north, carrying with him however a 

 considerable body of adherents, to whom additional numbers rapidly 

 gathered, so that he soon found himself in a condition to recommence 

 aggressive operations. Directing his force on the north-eastern coast, 

 he surprised the castle of Dunottar, cleared Aberdeen, Forfar, Brechin, 

 and other towns of their English garrisons, and then laid siege to the 

 castle of Dundee. While he was engaged in this last attempt, news 

 was brought that the English army was approaching Stirling ; upon 

 which, leaving the siege to be carried on by the citizens of Dundee, he 

 hastened to meet the enemy in the field. The result was the complete 

 defeat and rout of the English at the battle of Stirling Bridge, fought 

 on the llth of September 1297 a battle which once more, for the 

 moment, liberated Scotland. The English were immediately driven 

 or fled from every place of strength in the country, including Berwick 

 itself. 



Availing himself of this panic, and of the exhilaration of his country- 

 men, Wallace pursued the fugitives across the border ; and putting 

 himself at the head of a numerous force, he entered England on the 

 18th of October, and remaining till the llth of November, wasted the 

 country with fire and sword from sea to sea, and as far south as to the 

 walls of Newcastle. It was during this visitation that the prior and 

 convent of Hcxham obtained from him the protection preserved by 

 Hemingford. It is dated at Hexildesham (Hexham), the 7th of No- 

 vemb^r, and runs in the names of " Andreas de Moravia, et Wilhelmus 

 Wallensis, duces exercitus Scotiae, nomine praeclari principis Joannis, 

 Dei gratia, Regis Scotiae illustris, de consensu communitatis regni 

 ejusdem," that is, "Andrew Moray and William Wallace, commanders- 

 in-chief of the army of Scotland, in the name of King John, and by 

 consent of the community of the said kingdom." The John here 

 acknowledged as king of Scotland, was Baliol, now in the hands of 

 Edward, and living in a sort of free custody in the Tower of London. 

 Wallace's associate in the command was the young Sir Andrew Moray, 

 son of his faithful friend of that name who had retired with him from 

 the capitulation of Irvine, and who had fallen at the battle of Stirling 

 Bridge. 



One of the most curious of the few public papers in which the name 

 of Wallace occurs, was a few years since discovered by Dr. Lappen- 

 burg of Hamburg, in the archives of the ancient Hanseatio city of 

 Liibeck. It is a letter, in Latin, addressed to the authorities of Lu'beck 

 and Hamburg, informing them that their merchants should now have 

 free access to all the ports of the kingdom of Scotland, seeing that the 

 said kingdom, by the favour of God, had been recovered by war from the 

 power of the English. The letter is dated ' apud Badsingtonam [the 



true word, it has been suggested, is probably Haddingtonam], the llth 

 of October, 1297, that is, a few days before the invasion of Cumberland 

 and Northumberland. It is in the name of " Andreas de Moravia et 

 Willelmus Wallennis, duces exercitus regni Scotiae, et communitas 

 eiusclem regni " like the Hexham protection but without any men- 

 tion of King John : the letter is printed in the Appendix to ' The 

 Life of Sir William Wallace, by John D. Carrick,' 8vo, London, 1840, 

 p. 113. 



After his triumphal return from his incursion into England, Wallace 

 assumed the title of Guardian of the Kingdom in the name of King 

 John, whether formally invested with that dignity or only hailed as 

 such by the gratitude of his country. In a charter, printed in Ander- 

 son's ' Diplomata,' conferring the constabulary of Dundee on Alexan- 

 der Skirmischur [Scrimgeour] and his heirs, and dated at Torphichen 

 (in the county of Linlithgow) the 29th of March 1298, he styles him- 

 self " Willelmus Walays miles, Cuatos Regni Scotiae, et ductor exer- 

 cituum ejusdem, nomine praeclari principis Domini Johannis, Dei gratia 

 Hegis Scotiae illustris, de consensu commuuitatis ejusdem." The 

 grant is stated to have been made with the consent and approbation 

 of the nobility (" per cousensum et assensum magnatum dicti regui "). 



But this supreme elevation did not last long. Supported only by 

 his own merits and the admiration and attachment of his humbler 

 fellow-countrymen, Wallace, a new man, and without family connection, 

 would probably have found it difficult or impossible to retain his high 

 place, even if he had had nothing more to contend with than domestic 

 jealousy and dissatisfaction. Fordun relates that many of the nobility 

 were in the habit of saying, " We will not have this man to rule over 

 us." Meanwhile the energetic English king, who had been abroad 

 when the defeat of Stirling Bridge lost him Scotland, had now returned 

 home, and was already on his march towards the borders, at the head 

 of a powerful army. A body of English, which had landed in the 

 north of Fife, led by Aymer de Vallois, earl of Pembroke, is said by 

 the Scottish authorities to have been attacked and routed by Wallace 

 on the 12th of June 1298, in the forest of Blackironside, in that 

 county ; but when the two main armies met on the 22nd of July, in 

 the neighbourhood of Falkirk the Scots commanded by Wallace, the 

 English by their king in person the former, after a gallant and obsti- 

 nate resistance, were at last forced to give way, and the battle ended 

 in a universal rout accompanied with immense slaughter. 



This defeat did not put an end to the war; but it was taken advan- 

 tage of by the Scottish nobility to deprive Wallace of his office of 

 guardian or chief governor of the kingdom. The Scottish accounts 

 say that he voluntarily resigned the supreme power ; it is certain, at 

 any rate, that Bruce, his rival Comyn, and Lambeiton, bishop of St. 

 Andrews, were now appointed joint guardians of Scotland, still in the 

 name of Baliol. For some years after this our accounts of Wallace 

 are slight and obscure ; but he appears to have returned with a chosen 

 band of followers to the practice of the desultory warfare in which he 

 had originally distinguished himself. The legendary histories continue 

 to detail his deeds of prowess performed in harassing the enemy both 

 on their marches and in their camps and strongholds. And to fill up 

 the story they also make him to have paid two visits to France the 

 first ia 1300, the second in 1302. The next well-ascertained fact 

 regarding him is, that when the Scottish leaders were at last obliged 

 to submit to Edward at Strathorde, on the 9th of February 1304, 

 Wallace was not included in the capitulation, one of the clauses of 

 which (printed in the original French in Ryley's ' Placita Parlamen- 

 taria'), is to the effect that as for Wallace (Monsieur Guillaume de 

 Galeys), he might if he pleased give himself up to the king's mercy 

 (" qu'il se mette en la voluntd et en la grace nostre seigneur le Roy, 

 si lui semble que bon soit"). He was soon after summoned to appear 

 before a parliament, or convention of Scotch and English nobility, 

 held at St Andrews ; and upon their not presenting themselves, he 

 and Sir Simon Frisel or Fraser were pronounced outlaws. For some 

 time his retreat remained undiscovered, although his active hostility 

 still continued occasionally to make itself felt. A principal person 

 employed in the attempts to capture him appears to have been Ralph 

 de Haliburton j but how he was actually taken is not known. Sir 

 John Menteith (a son of Walter Stewart, earl of Menteith), to whose 

 treachery his delivery to the English kiug is attributed by Blind Harry 

 and popular tradition, appears to have really done nothing more than 

 forward him to England after he was brought a prisoner to Dumbarton 

 Castle, of which Menteith was governor under a commission from 

 Edward. Mr. Carrick, who has attempted to refute what is said upon 

 this matter by Lord Hailes, has taken no notice of the further vindi- 

 cation of Sir John Menteith in Mr. Mark Napier's ' Memoirs of John 

 Napier of Merchiston,' 4to, Edinburgh, 1834, pp. 527, &c., and in 

 ' Tracts, Legal and Historical,' by J. Riddell, Esq., 8vo, Edinburgh, 

 1835, pp. 145-149. 



On being brought to London, Wallace was lodged in the house of 

 William Delect, a citizen, in Fenchurch-strett ; and on the next day, 

 being the eve of St. Bartholomew, he was brought on .horseback to 

 Westminster, and in the hall there, " being placed on the south bench," 

 says Stow, " crowned with laurel, for that he had said in times past 

 that he ought to bear a crown in that hall," he was arraigned as a 

 traitor, and on that charge found guilty, and condemned to death. 

 After being dragged to the usual place of execution the Elms in 

 West Smithfield at the tails of horses, he was there hanged on a high 





